


Compulsion

by RandallsRedTie



Category: The Hour
Genre: Anxiety, OCD, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:24:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandallsRedTie/pseuds/RandallsRedTie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a moment with Randall in his office...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compulsion

The board meeting had gone well. Randall leans back in his chair, takes a deep drag of the cigarette (French) in his hand and exhales the smoke, slowly, first through the nose, then through the mouth. Always in that order. He taps the cigarette over the ashtray, three times, always three. He takes a swill from the expensive scotch in his glass. Then takes another sip from a spot just beside where the first sip was taken. As he always has done. Fingers tap restlessly on the rich wood desk. As well as today went he can still feel the anxiety bubbling under the surface, the ever-present feeling of doom on the horizon. He knows there’s no real reason for it, it’s just THERE. And it’s gotten worse since coming back to London. He tells himself it’s not do with Lix but of course it is and he’s only lying to himself. The right-hand drawer of his mahogany desk contained the last bits of evidence of his time with her. Well, almost all the last bits. In the drawer were small pieces of her; a tortoiseshell comb, an empty pack of her cigarettes, a red scarf, and one other thing. It was tucked way into the back of the drawer, behind everything else. Randall only ever looked at it a few times. The first when he bought it, the second when he moved it here from France. And now the third. He took out the small diamond ring he’d bought for her nearly 20 years ago, looked it over. It still shone with the same brilliance as it had when he’d purchased it in that French boutique. “Magnifique,” the jeweler had exclaimed. Randall had scrimped and saved to buy that ring for Lix. And in the end she said no, never, and had left two days later for London.  
In the time between then and now Randall had uncovered the real reason for Lix leaving. Upon that discovery hatred unlike anything he’d ever known had boiled in his body. Sobbing journalists had been left in its wake, and a handful of heart-broken women too. In time the hatred abated, mostly because he just couldn’t carry on with it. He smoked like a fiend and drank even more so, barely ate. His body whittled away to frightening thinness. When he passed out on an assignment he knew it was time to let it go. The doctor at the hospital told him he’d seen worse cases of malnourishment but not many.   
That was ten years ago. Then one day a call from London. A Head of News needed. And Randall knew he shouldn’t, but, like with most of the other aspects of his life, he gave over to the compulsion and accepted the job.   
So now he was here. And so was she. And every time he looked at her it cut him like a knife. She was still beautiful, always would be. And against all reason he still loved her. He knew he had to confront her about the past, knew she wouldn’t want to face it. But he needed closure and she owed him at least that.  
But not today…


End file.
